Two Japanese nationals were detained by Italian financial police last week after trying to enter Switzerland with $134 billion worth of undeclared U.S. bonds, mostly Treasury bonds, an Italian daily said Wednesday. The Japanese consulate general in Milan confirmed that the detention had taken place and said it was trying to confirm with Italian authorities whether the two were indeed Japanese nationals and their identities.

According to the report in il Giornale, two unidentified Japanese in their 50s concealed the bonds, including 249 U.S. Treasury bonds each worth $500 million, in a suitcase with a false bottom that was searched by the Italian authorities June 3 when they were in Chiasso, at the border with Switzerland, about 50 kilometers north of Milan. The daily did not say on what charges they have been detained, but the two may have been detained on suspicion of attempting to take a large amount of securities out of Italy without declaring it because the paper said they had not declared the bonds."

The House of Representatives came to agreement on Monday afternoon on the establishment of a 9/11-styled commission that would be independent of Congress and granted the power of subpoena to investigate the origins of the financial crisis.

Aides on the Hill said that the House will likely vote on the measure Wednesday, adding that the chances of passage were high. The office of the bill's cosponsor, Congressman Darrell Issa, said the legislation would be similar to that recently passed by the Senate.

The concept of the commission is pegged to the investigative body that looked into the intelligence collapse precededing the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

The key, in this case, is that the body - eight or (likely) ten members, split evenly by party affiliation - would have the power of subpoena, compelling the key players to testify. "It is," said one staffer involved in the creating of this legislation, "essential."

“The United States is bankrupt and is essentially
in the hands of its creditors. The Refunding Program,
which should have been kick-started in June 2006,
will address and rectify this state of affairs,
providing both immediate and long-term relief
to the American people and the whole world.”

-- Christopher Story FRSA,
Editor and Publisher, International Currency Review,
World Reports Limited, London and New York

Let me paraphrase something I once saw George H.W. Bush say: "Everything I am; everything I have accomplished; and everything I hope to accomplish I owe to David Rockefeller." Today I saw something I never thought possible. I saw a Rothschild endorse a fundamentally Rockefeller candidate -- John McCain. DNC Platform Committee Member Lynn Forester de Rothschild quit her post to endorse McCain as she also ended her longstanding role as a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. The Clintons also have strong Rockefeller "lineage" so I'm guessing that Hillary understands the move perfectly with a wink and a nod. I'll give you the punch line now, without making you read further.

”.. all the democratic groups of both America and Europe,
including those of the Italian center-left, know very well
already that the disastrous [September 11, 2001] attack was
planned and realized by the CIA and the Mossad, with the help
of the Zionists, in order to put under trial the Arab countries and to
lure the Western powers to intervene in both Iraq and Afghanistan.”

-- Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga
Quote in Italy's popular newspaper, 30 November 2007

Interview with economic historian and author, Webster Tarpley, on the global financial crisis. We discuss his new 17-page article, Helicopter Ben Unleashes Hyper-Inflation, including the bailout of Wall Street, inflation, demise of the dollar, derivatives, hedge funds, the plunge protection team, commodities as the next "bubble," and what we should do. Tarpley is author of Surviving the Cataclysm, A Study of the World Financial Crisis (Your Guide Through the Greatest Financial Crisis in Human History). He is also author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror, Made in the U.S.A.; Against Oligarchy; and co-author of George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography. Email him at tarpley@tarplet.net. Visit his website at www.tarpley.net.